Senate to discuss repromulgation of ordinances

ISLAMABAD The Upper House of the Parliament will discuss the constitutional status of recently repromulgated 12 ordinances by President Asif Ali Zardai on next Wednesday. The debate would discuss whether these ordinances are in accordance with the 18th Amendment or not. Professor Khurshid Ahmed on Thursday, through a privilege motion, apprised the House that after the passage of 18th Amendment, it was unconstitutional to re-promulgate any ordinance without sending it to the Parliament after its first promulgation. He moved a privilege motion over re-promulgation of 12 ordinances by the President during the last month that was also supported by Advisor to Prime Minister, Raza Rabbani. Professor Khurshid said that the promulgation of an ordinance was justifiable only under certain conditions. He was of the view that the clauses of the Constitution regarding promulgation of the ordinances should be abolished to free the Parliament from the clutches of executive. Raza Rabbani informed the House that if these ordinances were promulgated after the passage of 18th Amendment then it would be a violation of the Constitution otherwise the privilege motion would stand nullified. He said that if the President promulgated the ordinances before the 19th of April then there was no constitutional violation. If the assent was given subsequently, then privilege of the Parliament was breached, he added. It is pertinent to mention that the 18th Amendment became a part of the Constitution on April 19. Briefing the House, he said that after the passage of 18th Amendment, every ordinance would have to be sent to any House of the Parliament in due course of time for adoption of a resolution in its support. The Chairman Senate deferred the motion till Wednesday due to absence of Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Dr Babar Awan. The members of the House also raised their voices over the negative approach adopted by the Government to resolve the issue of missing persons. Senators Hafiz Rashid, Zafar Ali Shah, Professor Khurshid Ahmed and Jamal Khan Laghari, on point of orders, demanded that a separate parliamentary committee comprising members of the two Houses of the Parliament should be constituted to resolve the issue. Hafiz Rashid also staged a token walkout over the issue of missing persons, saying that the Government should inform the families of the missing persons about the reasons behind their disappearance. However, the Chairman Senate remarked that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had already constituted a commission in this regard, adding that he would ask the Interior Minister to give his version over the issue. Engineer Abdul Rasheed, on a point of order, criticised the decision of Government to cut the developmental budget of FATA, saying that the decision had deeply affected the ongoing development projects in the area. The members of the Senate hailing from FATA staged a token walkout from the House against the Governments decision. Earlier, The Upper House started a debate over the Presidential address to the joint session of the Parliament. Hasil Bazenjo said that his party strongly condemned the demand of new provinces, as it was the 30 years old slogan of the establishment. Questioning the sovereignty of country, he termed it shameful that the civil bureaucracy had changed the document of the National Finance Commission (NFC) that was unanimously signed by the chief ministers of all the provinces. Professor Ibrahim said that the President mentioned about the changes in Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) in his address but no notification had been issued so far. He also mentioned that the human rights violations and extra judicial killings were committed in Swat during the military operation.